Firebreather Drabble
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: I started this way back when I was pregnant, watching FireBreather while I was on maternity leave and having nothing better to do.  I am obsessed with this stupid little pairing  that, and Dante what's-his-name voices Kenny... I couldn't resist!


School was typical. As typical as school for a half-Kaiju could be. Duncan walked through the front doors, donning his high-collar sweater to brace himself against strange looks and the increasing cold chill in the air. It didn't usually get so cold down here in the valley; the desert was brutal for normal humans, but to him it was as balmy as Palm Beach on a fine summer day. His hot-blooded genes made it hard to stay comfortable when it got so cool out. His eyes were focused on what lay ahead of him, and his headphones were tuning out the general hubbub and noise around him, so he didn't hear Isabelle running up to him with her large eyes afire with excitement. It must have been very cold, because she was wearing a school sweatshirt and distressed denim jeans.

"Duncan!" Isabelle raised her voice. "Hey, Duncan? Earth to fire breath!"

His eyes shot open wide and he jerked, reaching to snatch her forearm in a hot-iron grasp. Isabelle, her messily tied-back mop of dark brown hair jarring over her eyes, stopped with a gasp.

"Sorry," Duncan muttered, releasing her.

Isabelle laughed, rubbing her arm all the same. "Nah, it's okay! I don't blame you for trying to get some time to yourself to sort things out."

"I wanted to go talk to dad yesterday," Duncan explained, interupting her altogether. "And they wouldn't let me in to see him. The facility was in total complete lockdown. I didn't wanna just blow the doors down." He smirked, twisting the code for his locker. "Okay, I'm lying. I really, _really_ wanted to blow the doors down to see him. But I was a good boy and I didn't."

"Jeez, that's rough." Isabelle tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She sounded sincere; her own family life was a mystery to Duncan, but at least she was willing to hear him out about his weird family issues. Kenny should have been a bit more sympathetic of a conversationalist, due to his father missing from the picture altogether, but it was still hard for them to talk about anything without the awkward. "You'd think they'd let a kid in to see his pop, no matter what the size ratio."

Duncan huffed. "Apparently there's still rules, and I gotta follow them. I can visit, but just not on my terms." His lips curved into a half-snarl. Then he struggled to relax. He was being made to practice some relaxation techniques now; apparently he had inherited a fair bit of temper. If he wasn't careful, he'd lose it and roast half the library's non-fiction reference books. "So how was your weekend."

"Typically boring." She smiled. "Kenny came over, and we played some new game or other I bought on Friday."

"Yeah, that, um, Deathmatch Horrorfest 3000?"

"You remembered!" The hyper-active teenage girl grinned and clapped a hand over his shoulder. "Come on, we're gonna be late for first period."

Later on after science class, where they were made to note and draw in the part of a working cell in a body, Duncan was distracted by Kenny; the boy looked downright miserable and unfortunately a little more pale than usual. His hoodie looked a little worse for the wear, too - the edges of the sleeves were almost entirely holes and no fabric and his pocket was handsewn on the front and again becoming frayed. Dark hair unkempt, it was growing long and falling over his eyes.

"You all right?" Duncan asked, sidling up to him by his locker. The jocks made a wide berth as they ambled past, choosing wisely not to harass any of the other students within Duncan's range of notice. "You look awful."

"Gee, thanks," Kenny rasped, scraping his hand through his bookbag to find a book he wanted to shove into place in between all the others needless papers and assignments went unfinished in the depths of his lockerspace. "I'm fine, thanks for asking." He slammed it shut and snuffled, before giving Duncan a strange look askance. "What?"

Duncan pursed his lips, trying to recognize what was wrong. The kid had a problem with saying what he needed to say, but sometimes it wasn't just a problem. It was downright infuriating. "Nothing, I guess. Just interested in the well-being of one of my only real friends in this school and being totally buffed off. Nothing big." He turned away to head off to his next class, suppressing the throaty growl of frustration rising in his throat. _Remember your meditation lessons_, he reminded himself.

But Kenny reached out for him, drawing his hand back before he actually touched his arm. "W-Wait a minute. I... I need your help."

The organization in charge of keeping Duncan and Belach, his father, under such tight surveilance and protection, hadn't paid any attention to Duncan's friends that day. After Kenny recovered from his injuries when the school dance was crashed by Astaroth and his buddy, his medical expenses were paid for in full. He wasn't sworn to secrecy; Duncan wasn't much of a national secret anymore anyway. Therefore no one offered any of Duncan's friends monetary compensation for their troubles. A large number of people and machines came, fixed up the school and any damages to the town, and made themself scarce in a matter of days.

Kenny still lived in almost-squallor in that trailer in the middle of the desert. The unseasonable chill in the air must have reached that far into the middle of nowhere, and that trailer didn't have its own heat. Duncan knew; he was there after Belach had given him his highly unappreciated inheritance and dumped him unceremoniously in the midst of the canyons.

He had felt bad for him then, but apparently Kenny had his own means to deal with the loss of his paternal caregiver. Didn't seem all that lonely at the time. But right now, this kid looked like he needed a friend. Duncan's heart cooled for a minute, then warmed again with a different kind of fire.

"What can I do?" Duncan asked softly, lowering his voice and drawing nearer. Kenny shivered from the sudden change in temperature. He even seemed to relax.

"I don't... I don't think I can deal with this cold, man." Kenny laughed. "Call me cold-blooded or something, but..." Was he actually blushing? "I wanted to ask you... if you could... sort of... come over and spend the night?"

Duncan blushed also. He felt his burnt sienna skin turning a bizarre shade of pink. "You... want me to come over?"

"You don't." Kenny's hopeful look began to deflate. "That's okay, I mean... I should go swing by the store and try to pick up an electric space heater or something."

"You want me to warm your trailer up like some sort of appliance?" Duncan leaned closer, watching Kenny smile as Duncan's unnatural heat wrapped around him like a sheet. "I think I can do that. I'll have to sneak past mom's advanced security system." He brushed his hand through his hair, leaning against the locker next to Kenny's. "What time...?"

"After dark."

"Will you survive the cold til then?"

"I'll try." Kenny looked away, shivering a little. "Um... Bye!" He quickly shut his locker and bustled past the blonde-haired half-Kaiju, leaving the young man with a weird sense of awkward he couldn't peg a name to.

Kenny shivered in his trailer, piled the two sheets he owned around him. Most of his blankets were full of holes and motheaten. At least for now, he could keep warm by writing in his laptop and keeping it on his legs. He shivered all the same, because his fingers were frozen - it was the curse of being scrawny enough to be unable to regulate his own body temperature.

"I hate the cold," he repeated for the hundredth time in the last two hours. He checked the clock on his laptop, checked the window to see if the sun had sunken any closer to the horizon. It was almost dark; the endless horizon was stained a beautiful cream-pink color. Not a cloud in the distance.

Suddenly he heard a weird noise - like fabric cutting apart in the wind. It was Duncan, his wings folding as he dropped out of the sky like a stone. His black silhouette was shaped strangely, and then he knew why as he went to open the front door.

"Got some firewood, too," the boy explained as he dumped a sizable load of mesquite wood, secured together with a length of sturdy rope. His eyes glowed unnaturally in the dark; Kenny let out a grateful sigh.

"I'll at least be able to burn this in a trashcan or something."

"Actually," Duncan explained as he began to dig his hands - formed like talons, tougher than metal - into the earth. He formed a shallow depression and tossed a scorpion corpse aside after he squashed it with a grunt of displeasure. "I'm going to make a firepit. I have more of this stuff growing all around my house but this is all I could carry."

"Thanks," Kenny said, wrapped in his blanket and layers of clothes. He could see his breath - almost - as he stood out here. Duncan bent over his work as he organized the firewood, his skin slowly becoming lighter in color and his wings sliding into the unearthly folds of skin against his back. He was wearing the same pants he wore that day to school and no shoes at all. Once the wood was arranged to his liking, in a sort of pyramid-tent shape, Duncan pulled some newspaper and twigs out of his pocket and started tucking them inside the shape. Finally - and Kenny seemed frozen to the spot, fascinated, as a soft stream of fire slid out from the other boy's mouth and touched the paper lightly. It caught, sputtered, and spread, making everything else around it expand with light and warmth.

Duncan stood up and grinned at the other boy. "Excellent. This should burn for a little while."

Ken stepped down from the stoop of the trailer and closer to the blaze, sighing in some relief. He opened his blanket and dropped it on the ground next to the welcome heat, finally sitting his butt down. "I got some marshmallows in the cupboard," he offered in jest. "If you're hungry from the long trip."

Duncan laughed, pulling something else out of his back pocket. It was a couple of chocolate protein bars lifted from his mom's healthfood stash. "I told mom I was going out, by the way. So no tanks are going to come busting down this place to get me." He tossed one of them to Kenny, who took it without complaint.

Munching away, the boys stared into the fire while the sun disappeared. Out here, the stars were easy to pick out and the formations they made stood out like paintings. Ken shivered less, holding out his hands to the fire as it burned down.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Duncan said, "but I was wondering... if you were good on food and stuff." He shuffled his feet a little, not meeting the other's eyes. "I know you're by yourself out here. I figured... I'd ask. I can get you anything you want, no expense spared!"

"No, it's cool." Ken hugged himself, leaning forward to warm his face. "Isabelle gets me groceries sometimes. Her mom kind of adopted me, but it's hard to come out here all the time."

"What about right now?"

"I...I've got enough." Ken huffed, feeling embarassed that Duncan had finally noticed how strapped he really was. "It's not a big deal."

"Okay, okay." The blonde squatted down, breathing new fire into the wood. But it was already beginning to go out. "Gah, this crap sucks." He sucked in a breath and loosed a towering pillar of fire into the sky. It made the little area in front of the trailer as illuminated as if it were daytime for a few seconds.

Ken unshielded his eyes when it was over. "Easy! I have another idea." He jumped up, dusting off his pants before he ran over around the side of the house. He returned with an armful of splintered furniture that was broken and served no purpose at all. "I dunno, having this stuff lying around, I just...couldn't bring myself to burn it yet."

"Is it okay?" Duncan's brow furrowed, the finely etched scales on his skin glinting. Was it his imagination, or was Duncan getting shinier all the time?

"Yeah," Duncan replied flatly, dumping the stuff onto the pile. "Burn it."

Duncan hesitated, but after Ken grabbed his blanket and withdrew with a stony face, Duncan filled the depression with flames and it erupted into fresh warmth. He grinned, but it vanished when he saw Kenny's face.

"Kenny?"

The boy stared into the fire, his lips tightly pursed, his nostrils flaring a bit. He was upset, or maybe he had changed his mind a bit too late. What _was_ all that stuff he had asked Duncan to burn?

"What's wrong?"

Just a little shrug. "Nothing." He sat down again, bundled in the blanket. "I don't have anything else to burn yet."

Yet? Duncan sidled over and sat down beside the other, unable to bring himself to interrupt the crackling of the broken wood. He let out a thoughtful sigh and leaned his chin on his arms.

"It was my dad's," came a faint husky voice, rough with some emotion. "It was his desk before he left. He was always working..."

"I think... I get it. It's okay." Duncan sat up slowly and watched the other boy softly for a minute. "We've got our own dad issues, don't we?" And before he let it get too awkward, he cleared his throat. "While this is going, I'm gonna go grab more before it-"

"Don't go." Ken snuffled. "It's not going out any time soon." He slid toward him, burritoed in the blanket, and laid his head on his bare shoulder, flinching a bit as if he expected it to scald. But it was just as pleasantly warm as a stone being warmed by the noon sun. Only it was sort of soft, like snakeskin. He felt his face start to go red. "Um."

"Uh." Duncan held still. Really _awkward, Kenny._

Ken and Duncan didn't move for a long time. Desert stars swirled above. It was getting quite late, but Kenny wasn't feeling tired yet. He wasn't sure how he felt. It was just nice to feel cared for, even if it was awkward like having a half-Kaiju boy giving him the gift of warmth and fire. Eventually Ken pulled away and let loose with an enormous yawn. Duncan swept a hand through his unruly yellow hair to hide a red stain on his cheeks, while the other boy stood up.

"Um," Ken started, "I think I should head in to, ya know, go to sleep. I mean, you know, we have school tomorrow..." He was already shivering.

Duncan chewed his lip. "I can stay, right?"

"Oh." Kenny ducked his head and arched his shoulders, like a turtle trying to hide in its shell. "I... I don't wanna make your mom worry."

Duncan smiled. "It's okay." He draped an arm around the other boy's. "We're big kids, we can handle ourselves. It's just, as soon as I'm gone, I take all this warm away with me and you'll just end up cold all night anyway." He squeezed his shoulders. "Don't be afraid to ask me anything. Okay, buddy?"

Kenny nestled into his side for just a second too long. Then he pulled away and hopped up into the trailer, giving Duncan a quick nervous glance. "J-Just let me pick up a bit."

"Don't let me stop you," Duncan said, feeling something else like that awkward sensation at school that morning. Or was it late enough to count as yesterday? He scratched at his shoulder and shivered himself. He wanted to say something to comfort Kenny. After all, if he wanted him to go home, he could say it. He didn't want to drive them toward further inescapable awkwardness.

"Kenny, where am I gonna sleep?" He wanted to avoid awkwardness but he was sort of hoping he wouldn't have to warm up a spot on the cold linoleum floor. Kenny said from inside, "Um, let me get some stuff off the futon..." Something fell to the floor, heavy, like a bunch of clothes or bags full of wet newspapers. Kenny grunted as he dragged the futon across the floor to an apparently more ideal place. A split-second later he popped his head out. "Come on in!"

The boys stood in the middle of the rickety drafty little trailer for awhile. Duncan actively attempted to raise his body temperature - once again making use of his meditation technique. The room temperature rose a few degrees in average and Kenny seemed to relax several muscles, slouching a bit more and looking as content as a broody cat. When his legs got stiff, he turned to rummage in his cupboard and had some cocoa stored somewhere behind two open bags of stale chips and boxes of random snack-type items. It was a real wonder the boy was so thin. He filled up a couple of chipped mugs with water and handed them to Duncan. After a second, he perked up. "Oh." He warmed them up in his hands. Kenny poured in the cocoa packets and stirred them while Duncan held each in his hands.

"Sorry," Kenny laughed. "But I have to say, you're like, an all-in-one heating helper."

"Glad you said 'helper' and not 'thing' or whatever." Duncan sat down on the futon and listened to the many metal bits creak and turn over with his weight. He sucked at the cocoa, which was just right for him. Kenny held his in his hands carefully and waited for it to cool off, seated as he was on the bed.

"Are you all right?" Duncan asked. "I mean..."

"I'll be fine." Kenny blew on his cocoa, his black shaggy hair covering his eyes. "Don't get bent out of shape, 'cause I'm not."

_I'd disagree, but..._ Duncan nodded, and drank down the last of his molten beverage before he flopped onto his back. He relished the feeling of drinking something that should have scalded his throat all the way down. It felt more like it was soothing an ache deep inside, and it gave him the strength to speak. "Kenny, why don't you come live with me and mom?"

Kenny almost spilled hot cocoa down his pants, but he caught himself, the cup retreating to a wobbly stack of magazines standing as an end table. "What? For real?"

"I could sneak you in or something, and by the time mom found out, I'll just tell her you had nowhere else to go. Your house fell down or something." A mischeivious grin spread across his face.

"Duncan..." He grinned. "It would be pretty awesome to crash at your house for awhile."

"Stay up all night watching movies on my 42" plasma TV."

"Swappin' manly stories."

"Drinking Mountain Dew until we tweak out!"

They grinned at each other in the dark and dreamed. They neither of them dared consider that his mother and half of the people in charge of 'guarding' Duncan would never let him have a friend over for any prolonged amount of time.

"Let's go, then!" Duncan stood up, as though a new breath of fire spreading through him. He had to go now or he would lose his courage. He had faced down his father's enemies, so there was no chance he was going to back down from a bunch of humans telling him Bad, Bad boy, Duncan, no, you can't keep Kenny.

"R-Right now?"

"Have you ever flown before?" Duncan asked daringly, jumping out the open doorway and darting into the night front yard, not even the chilled air rushing through the open door.

Kenny followed him, shivering all over again, until the other boy grabbed him hard around the waist and spread his membranous wings.

"Wh-what the- Duncan wait wait wait wait-" Too late. His stomach dropped out and the harsh cold air ripped his breath out of his lungs. His face was smushed into a chest that was hard and smooth as a snakeskin. He was probably still not blushing hot enough to register the other boy's notice. Whatever jumbled thoughts he had were being ripped right away with the wind as powerful wings beating like a heart unlike any other. He clung tightly as his muscles burned.

It should have been minutes. It felt more like seconds. Then they descended, and his stomach felt like it was jumping up through his throat. Kenny felt like he couldn't hold on for another second, but then he was right on his ass in front of Duncan's balcony window. The Kaiju boy stretched for a minute and he huffed. "No big deal."

"Uh..." Kenny closed his eyes and tried to remember which was was up.

"Come on in."

The boy rose and unsteadily found his way inside Duncan' s house. The pair were as silent as mice, creeping along quietly. He wanted to ask if Duncan was sure no one had spotted him leaving or flying in, but it didn't matter. He had never really been in Duncan's house before. It was huge, and friendly, but had an odd 'new' smell about it. It was as if the house had sprung out of a well of fresh paint and wood and steel.

Duncan opened a closet door with a devious smile. "I hope you like Soul Calibur..."

And they spent the rest of the late night in each other's company, drinking Mountain Dew until they were almost delirious with the sugar and caffeine high and sampling from Duncan's expansive library of game titles.

And in the morning, Duncan's mother found her son and his best friend flopped onto the middle of his floor, drooling into the carpet as they snored like chainsaws.


End file.
